METAMERICANA: Is James Franco a Creep? Thank God We’ll Never Know

METAMERICANA: Is James Franco a Creep? Thank God We'll Never Know

This
past week, James Franco was “caught” propositioning a seventeen
year-old Scottish touristvia Instagram and text message. The
Internet subsequently exploded with speculation that the scandal was a cynical
concoction, just a clever bit of performance art-cum-free publicity for
Franco’s forthcoming film Palo Alto, whose plot (based on a Franco short
story from the collection of the same name) detailsa high school soccer coach’s illicit
affair with one of his female players. If you have a lot of time and even more
patience, you can read the intricate conspiracy theories alleging that we’re all being played
for fools, or (alternately) that the whole brouhaha merely proves that Franco
is celebrity swine. You can also find subtle variations
on these two themes, for instance in an articleon Slate that begs Franco
to “just” be a creep rather than that far more odious manifestation
of eerie eccentricity, a performance artist.

In
keeping with the theme of this column, however, I’ll offer a third hypothesis:
That the real question is, why should we care whether James Franco’s a creep?

I
don’t say this as a moral observation, since the fact that Scottish teen Lucy
Clode (if any such person exists) is above the age of consent certainly doesn’t
clear Franco of the taint of impropriety. This is a high-schooler on holiday
with her mom, after all, and the celebrities we most admire refrain from cynically
exploiting their positions for sexual advantage. Nor am I offering up some
holier-than-thou nonsense about how we shouldn’t hold celebrities to a higher
standard than anyone else, or shouldn’t care about their personal lives at all.
It’s no more unreasonable to titter about what Brad and Angelina are doing than
it is to marvel at Michelle Obama’s latest dress; it’s natural to be interested
by those we believe have more interesting lives than we do, even if,
admittedly, that sort of interest saps our energies for more productive,
ennobling, and (not for nothing) interesting endeavors.

In
any case, if we’re to be enthralled by the lives of the young and famous, James
Franco isn’t a bad place to start. Whatever else he may be, he’s undoubtedly an
interesting man. In addition to pursuing four graduate degrees simultaneously
and requesting public financing for
his film projects despite his enormous wealth, Franco has also made some of the
most interesting meta-art of this century and done yeoman’s work as a
philanthropist, not just including work on behalf of young filmmakers but alsothe fight to cure AIDS and eradicate illiteracy.

So
the reason to set aside the question of whether James Franco is a creep has
nothing to do with whether the man himself is of natural interest to
self-anointed celebrity-watchers; no, the main reason not to care whether
Franco is or is not a creep is that it’s far more interesting not to know than
to know. Whatever your opinion of fellow budding auteur Shia LaBeouf—who Franco
infamously defendedin the New York Times after
the former plagiarized several individuals and then plagiarized his apologies
for those plagiarisms—he’s
certainly a more compelling figure now that he appears to have become an icon
of American metamodernism than he was when running away from
explosions in slow-motion with Megan Fox in the dismal Transformers: Revenge
of the Fallen. Some may quibble here and say that the only thing worse than
being a self-indulgent artist is being a self-indulgent wannabe artiste—as
LaBeouf would indeed be, were his stunts not partly inspired by an entirely
serious artistic philosophy originating in the most respected salons of Western
Europe—but
the argument here isn’t that LaBeouf is interesting because he’s
(alternately) the genuine article or a phony, but that he’s interesting because
in the Age of Information, the only mysteries left are those no amount of
information can dispel.

It’s
widely known among metamodernists that Shia LaBeouf did not, in fact, write the
“Metamodernist Manifesto” that now bears his name, which was in fact written three
years agoby British photographer Luke Turner;
likewise, it’s widely known to committed metamodernists that metamodernism
isn’t particularly interested in plagiarism like LaBeouf’s, nor are the
“metamodern” influences LaBeouf has publicly cited (like postmodern
poet Kenneth Goldsmith) actually metamodernists themselves. But when does it
stop mattering what someone intends, or knows or doesn’t know, or (in the case
of Franco) is or is not—when the ambiguities they leave in their wake are not
only intellectually provocative and ethically instructive but also pretty damn
entertaining? Which was more interesting to you: Joaquin Phoenix’s bizarre
appearance on David Letterman at a time when we believed the Academy
Award-nominated actor had retired from acting and inexplicably taken up rap, or the movie it turned out he was
putting on that act for, 2010’s I’m Still Here, which managed
even a middling 54% on Rotten Tomatoes only because, at the time it was
released, the jury was still out on whether it was a documentary or performance
art?

The
ambiguities that lie behind these actors’ behaviors suggest not that ignorance
is sublime, but rather that the particular breed of ignorance born when either
of two diametrically opposed possibilities is equally possible is, in fact, one
of the only avenues of transcendence left for us. Whether it’s trying to determine
if Alison Gold’s now-infamous song “Chinese Food” was sincere or a parody, or trying to
make the same determination regarding this song, we increasingly find the most
rigorous challenges to the status quo to be, rather than those that entrench
long-abandoned principles or deconstruct still-conventional structures, those
that remind us that the phrase “Information Age” is and always will
be a misnomer. The idea of the Information Age is perpetually dangerous, not
because it permits us to act lousily both anonymously and with impunity—though
it does—but because it deludes us into believing we know much more than we
actually do.

For
all the social media hoopla surrounding James Franco and Shia LaBeouf, and all
the “news articles” detailing the latest escapades of both actors,
the newsflash the Information Age denies us is this one: We don’t know the first damn thing about either James Franco or Shia
LaBeouf. All we even think we know is the fraction of what
James and Shia choose to let us see which media filters then permit us to
discover online. This distillation is then further filtered through our own
ability to comprehend lives and contexts entirely foreign to our own. And
because what James and Shia choose to let us see is undoubtedly dictated by
inscrutable personality traits and obscure eccentricities inherent to both men,
the sincerity or insincerity of any data relating to Franco or LaBeouf is not
only unknown to us but also (to quote Donald Rumsfeld) unknowable.

We
can watch films in which either Franco or LaBeouf is featured and know whether
we’ve enjoyed each actor’s performance; we can decide for ourselves whether we
find either man attractive or charismatic; we can choose to be titillated or
bored by either one’s shenanigans; but ultimately, “James Franco” and
“Shia LaBeouf” are merely constellations of data that make us feel
things we do or don’t like to feel. James Franco is not a realizable human
being to me, nor is Shia LaBeouf, nor could they ever be until I had met them several
times and observed first-hand all those human quirks the “Information
Age” makes it harder rather than easier to access: body language;
intonation; treatment of strangers in real-time; split-second reactions to
unexpected stimuli; the ability to listen; general temperament; private
fidelities and infidelities; and so on. The biggest lie of the Information Age
is that it’s the age of actionable and reliable information. Our need to know
whether James Franco is respectful to women and capable of distinguishing
between a child and an age-appropriate peer is merely our need to cash in on
the promises implicitly made to us by the Age. We think that we ought to
be able to know things, so we insist that we do—even when we manifestly don’t.
Or else, as in the “Lucy Clode” imbroglio, we chase the rabbit down the
rabbit-hole in a vain attempt to locate “truth.”

When
I consider how misinformation (or merely information that’s impossible to
confirm or deny) can empower me by denying me access to ready conclusions—that
is, by keeping me in a state of suspended intellectual and emotional
titillation—I realize that, unless I get to know James Franco or Shia
LaBeouf personally, the value of the terms “James Franco” and
“Shia LaBeouf” is really no more and no less than the quality of the
ambiguities they leave in their wake. To observe the same phenomenon in another
public sphere, I can, for instance, dislike U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX)
because he’s an obvious fraud—which he undoubtedly is, even according to
members of his own party—but
I can also dislike him for being an uninteresting compendium of data in a world
in which parcels of data constantly compete for my attention. The fact that Ted
Cruz doesn’t really require my attention is attributable not only to his
political rhetoric being conspicuously unjust and destructive, but also to the
fact that it’s all too easy to slot him into my mental diagram of the American
superstructure.

We
are, all of us, powerless in the face of so much data. We can’t distinguish its
value, and pretending otherwise diminishes us. The best course of action for
those of us hoping to weather or even transcend this generation of
unaccountable hot air is to watch, when we have time, astrophysicist Neil
deGrasse Tyson on “Cosmos” (a television program that deals only in data that’s been
subjected to the scientific method), and then, whenever we don’t have time, let
the generative ambiguities of data-dumps like “James Franco” and
“Shia LaBeouf” power-wash us clean of all our false ambitions.

Seth Abramson is the author of three collections of poetry, most recently Thievery (University of Akron Press, 2013). He has published work in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Best New Poets, American Poetry Review, Boston Review, New American Writing, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, and The Southern Review.
A graduate of Dartmouth College, Harvard Law School, and the Iowa
Writers’ Workshop, he was a public defender from 2001 to 2007 and is
presently a doctoral candidate in English Literature at University of
Wisconsin-Madison. He runs a contemporary poetry review series for The Huffington Post and has covered graduate creative writing programs for Poets & Writers magazine since 2008.

Comments

sjbÂ³
May 13, 2016 2:20 pm

Never been to METAMERICANA before. I was sent this article by a friend of mine. He'll never do that again. I just finished reading Frankfurt's On Bullshit. Very illuminating read. I feel compelled to share some insights using some choice quotes from this article.

"We are, all of us, powerless in the face of so much data. We can't distinguish its value, and pretending otherwise diminishes us. The best course of action for those of us hoping to weather or even transcend this generation of unaccountable hot air is to watch, when we have time, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on "Cosmos" (a television program that deals only in data that's been subjected to the scientific method), and then, whenever we don't have time, let the generative ambiguities of data-dumps like "James Franco" and "Shia LaBeouf" power-wash us clean of all our false ambitions."

This is utter nihilistic bullshit, classic rationalization bullshit which conveniently avoids discussing the carnage narcissism and solipsism (the idea that we can't distinguish value in data–We can't know the other! O my God! Actually, you can.) leave in their wake.

"When I consider how misinformation (or merely information that's impossible to confirm or deny) can empower me by denying me access to ready conclusionsâthat is, by keeping me in a state of suspended intellectual and emotional titillationâI realize that, unless I get to know James Franco or Shia LaBeouf personally, the value of the terms "James Franco" and "Shia LaBeouf" is really no more and no less than the quality of the ambiguities they leave in their wake."

This is wordplay academic bullshit. Not a single person is empowered by being kept in a state of "suspended intellectual and emotional titillation" because they are just that: suspended, fixed, held, petrified, trapped. NOT FREE.

"It's natural to be interested by those we believe have more interesting lives than we do, even if, admittedly, that sort of interest saps our energies for more productive, ennobling, and (not for nothing) interesting endeavors."

Then why has this article been written? For the rent? Is the author is subtly admitting this whole column is bullshit? I think Logan ("I don't see why this is a thing") and Righton ("nothing to see here") are on to something.

"The ambiguities they leave in their wake are not only intellectually provocative and ethically instructive but also pretty damn entertaining."

This is ridiculous bullshit. For whom, in what world, is the circle-jerk of LaBeouf plagarism or Franco met-art "intellectually provocative and ethically instructive"? Over-educated literati? Reality TV junkies? Social Engineering Think Tanks?

Calling a human being, even Ted Cruz, an "uninteresting compendium of data" is dehumanizing fascist bullshit.

"In keeping with the theme of this column, however, I'll offer a third hypothesis: That the real question is, why should we care whether James Franco's a creep?"

This is the crux of the crux of the bullshit. The real question is why are we reading, and why is this author writing, bullshit like this when more important bullshit goes on. Like this. Maybe that boy is an "uninteresting compendium of data" to the author and his readership, and they'd rather pay attention to "data-dumps" like Franco and LaBeouf.

"The ambiguities that lie behind these actors' behaviors suggest not that ignorance is sublime, but rather that the particular breed of ignorance born when either of two diametrically opposed possibilities is equally possible is, in fact, one of the only avenues of transcendence left for us."

To argue that a "particular breed of ignorance" is "one of the only avenues of transcendence left" is truly dangerous, and yes, ignorant bullshit. Does this author believe wisdom even exists?

I'm not interested in the lives of the young and famous.
I don't think Shia LaBeouf is a compelling man.
I don't think James Franco is an interesting man.
I think this guy is an interesting man.

"In the Age of Information, the only mysteries left are those no amount of information can dispel."